Summer ‘26

By Stewart Collins

‘Well how are you going to top that!?’… If there’s one question I both dread, but am also incredibly familiar with at the end of any festival, it’s that. How, indeed does one ‘top that’ when clearly you have just finished a fortnight that genuinely hasn’t had any lows, and which has actually had a whole series of extraordinary highs.

I really hope this doesn’t sound smug, but chatting with friends and colleagues I know that the summer ’25 festival was very special. In programming events I always have high hopes and expectations of course, but when even those are exceeded, you are bound to feel a certain sense of achievement. But then comes the question. ‘How are you going to top that?!’

The answer is quite simply that I hope I will! The one thing you can say about the cultural scene in this country is that, however pressed it might be financially – and it really is! – the well of talent and creativity is never dry. There is always something new out there and very often there is something better than you’ve seen before. And my job between each festival is to go out and make sure that I both find it and find a way of bringing it to Petworth.

As we speak we are some months away from announcing the Summer ’26 programme, but this time of year is really exciting as we consolidate the ideas and invitations that will go to make up the programme of the 47 th Petworth Summer Festival. Has every one of the preceding 46 topped the previous one? Who can say, but that’s the challenge and it’s one I willingly accept…